Wednesday, June 27, 2018

"The death of Donald Hall comes at a moment when his poetry feels newly relevant. Hall’s hospitable poems, which approach difficult ideas in the idioms of common speech, defend the sense and meaning of ordinary language from the daily barrage of a debased and weaponized English. At a time when straightforward “tough talk” is giving popular license to open racism, sexism, and anti-intellectualism, Hall’s poetry instead revels in the surprising insights of trivial observations and confronts the anguish of ubiquitous death and loss."